Trial begins for Ohio mom charged in school brawl

By AMANDA LEE MYERSAssociated Press

August 21, 2013 06:09 PM

By AMANDA LEE MYERSAssociated Press

August 21, 2013 06:09 PM

A police officer testified Wednesday that he arrested a woman accused of helping her teenage daughter beat up a classmate at a high school because she "tried to take the law into her own hands" when she bypassed school rules to get on campus.

On the opening day in Precious Allen's assault and trespassing trial, Officer Shawn George said he believed Allen had every intention of harming a student at Withrow High School when she walked in without permission from the front office on Feb. 7 and went to the girl's classroom.

Allen, 31, has said she was at the school to withdraw her daughter and get her daughter's things and passed by a school security guard, who allowed her to continue without a visitor's badge. She has pleaded not guilty.

George described a chaotic scene when he responded to the on-campus fight involving Allen, her then-14-year-old daughter and another student, with dozens of students yelling and trying to see what was happening. Allen is accused of punching the other student and holding her down as her daughter hit the girl with a combination lock, leaving her with cuts and bruises.

George described Allen as "not rational."

"She went up and tried to take the law into her own hands," George said. "I do think she purposely went up there with the intentions of doing something she had no business doing."

Prosecutor Eric Cook, in his opening statement, expressed indignation at the claim that Allen intended only to pick up her daughter's things from school.

"This is a clear and simple case of a mother or a parent acting like a child," Cook said. "This was a stereotypic case of, `Meet me after school at the playground and we're going to handle this.' The only difference is the mother was there saying, `If she doesn't handle it, I'll handle it.'"

Allen and her daughter say the other girl started it, had punched Allen's daughter in the face the day before and had been bullying her for some time.

Allen's attorney, Eric Deters, told jurors in his opening statement that she "did nothing but try to protect her daughter." He also questioned how a video of the confrontation wasn't retained when other surveillance videos showing Allen and her daughter in other parts of the school were, implying that it was purposefully deleted.

Under questioning by Deters, George admitted he didn't watch video of the confrontation until two days after, saying that he had enough witness statements to make an arrest. He added that he didn't know what happened to the video showing the fight.

After court, Deters said that he had been planning to enter a plea agreement on Allen's behalf but rejected it Wednesday because prosecutors wanted her to plead guilty to the assault charge rather than the trespassing charge and that would have caused her to lose her job as a nurse's aide.